Cardijn quote

Every young worker is worth more than all the gold in the world.

Cardijn on adult apostolate

"The fact that apostolic movements up to the present day are principally being put into action by young people does not lessen the importance of, and the urgent need for an apostolate amongs adults; unless such an apostolate exists, all the efforts of the young people will lead to a dead end" - Laymen into action

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"Fantastic response," Ruben writes." Never expected the youth to be so responsive and attentive."

This year is also another year of Cardijn centenaries. In a few months, we will mark the hundredth anniversary of Cardijn's visit to London to meet the English trade union leaders, particularly Ben Tillett of the Dockers Union who had so much impact on his conception of the future YCW.

There will be some major events for CCI coming up this year, notably our 10th centenary of our foundation as the Cardijn Liaison Committee at a Network for Development conference in Bangkok in July 2001.

We plan to celebrate this anniversary and make plans for the coming years at our International Forum and General Assembly once again in Bangkok on 23-24 July 2011. More details here and hope you can join us.

Also coming up this year is a major conference to be held by the Cardijn Community Australia to be held in Melbourne from 4-6 November at the Archdiocesan Centre and the Catholic Theological College. We will have publish more details as they become available.

Don't hesitate to contact us with news of other video resources to include in our list.

Also published on the Cardijn Documents site is Cardijn's 1956 speech to English and Welsh YCW chaplains, Quaerite Primum - Seek First. It is a tour de force of Cardijn's basic philosophy and method and is one of the few published texts that were originally delivered in English.

Here also is a link to the announcement by Marc Sangnier of the closure of Le Sillon, the magazine of the French Sillon movement, which was the major precursor to the Cardijn movements. It was the closure of the Sillon which opened the door to the emergence of the YCW.

CCI India is also organising its first Youth 4 Change Conference in Goa from 6-8 January 2011. There are already 80 registrations for the program and enrolments are now closed as the venue is at its maximum. This is really a fantastic achievement and augurs well for the work of CCI in 2011.

Thanks to the CCI India Team and International Convenor MJ Ruben for all their work on these events.

I also took part in a seminar organised by the Institute Marc Sangnier to mark the centenary of Pope Pius X's letter to the French bishops which tragically led to the closure of the Sillon (Furrow) movement.

The Sillon movement was the prototype of the Cardijn movements and was largely responsible for the development of the method that we now know as the See Judge Act. Read my history of the links between the Sillon and the YCW here.

During my visit to France I was also able to take part in an event commemorating the life of French YCW, Fr George Guerin. A formal process for his beatification has already started. And many people in France were asking when will the process for Cardijn also begin.

In November, I also took part in a coordination meeting of the Cardijn Community Australia. This network is also taking shape and is in the planning process for a major national conference in late 2011.

We are also proud to welcome a new CCI network emerging in Indonesia. Founded by Lutheran Pastor Batara Sihombing, CCI Indonesia has launched among a group of Lutheran seminarians and pastors in North Sumatra. We are grateful to Batara and his colleagues for opening up this new frontier of ecumenical cooperation for us.

In another important initiative, a group of friends and colleagues of Belgian priest Fr Francois Houtart launched a process to have him nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Humbly, Francois however requested the group to withdraw their initiative. Meanwhile, there is a nice interview (in French) with Francois here in which he pays tribute to the YCW.

Condolences

Condolences also on the recent deaths of Cardijn movement friend, Bishop Bunluen Mansap of Thailand and ex-Thailand YCW chaplain, Fr Pitak, ex-YCW and Cardijn Community member, Geraldine Crane in Australia and British socialist and ex-YCW John Toomey. Coimbatore ex-YCW leader and CCI India member,.S. Mariadoss also passed away last month.

Well, as you can see, much has been happening over the last couple of months.

We expect even more in 2011, beginning with the Y4C Conference in Goa.

Now it is only two years to go until we mark the 50th anniversary of Vatican II. Already we are planning to mark this occasion by launching a 3 year study program Vatican 2 @ 50 from 2012-2015.

Next year's CCI conference in Bangkok will be an important step in planning this program.

And we are already working to prepare the necessary documents.

Latest document on our JosephCardijn.com website are a new series of extracts from the conciliar diary of the late French Cardinal Yves Congar, an expert at the Council.

These extracts are particularly revelatory of the "behind the scenes' thinking of both Congar and Cardijn. Be prepared for a shock when you learn which Vatican officials they regarded as "cretins" or "useless"!

Meanwhile, we have just discovered an online live recording of an address by Cardijn delivered in Rome during the last days of the Council in November 1965. What a speech! Even those who don't understand French will have no difficulty in hearing and feeling Cardijn's passion as he speaks about the situation of workers in the world.

The recording has been published by the Centre for the Study of the Second Vatican Council at the Catholic University of Leuven. Interestingly, the list of recordings also includes a presentation by sociologist of religion, Father Francois Houtart. Listen to Francois here.

Like Cardijn and Congar, Houtart was also an expert at the Council. Indeed, Cardijn wanted Houtart to succeed him as chaplain of the International YCW.

Now Francois Houtart is in the news again today as a group of friends and colleagues launch an initiative to have him nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Australian Bishop Kevin Manning, a former YCW chaplain and a strong backer of worker rights, has been honoured with the launch of a new series of annual lectures named for him. The first lecture was delivered this week in Sydney by former Australian Prime Minister and trade union leader, Bob Hawke.

Speaking of hospital visits, we also feature a blog by the Mtima Woyer YCW group from Lilongwe, Malawi, who have also been carrying out visitation of the sick.

This week also marks the feast of St Therese of Lisieux, named patron of the YCW by Pope Pius XI in 1929. This item from the English YCW spells out the spirituality of the Little Flower.

Chicago labor activist, Bill Droel, reflects on the role of the Cardijn-inspired movements in responding to Pope Benedict's call for a new evangelisation in the countries with "churches of ancient foundation", meaning Europe in particular.

We also remember American Franciscan Father Boniface Hanley whose 1978 book Ten Christian: By Their Deeds You Shall Know Them features a chapter on the life of Cardijn that has often been used by groups around the world. Father Hanley died in New Jersey last month.

Welcome to our CCI blog page, a new addition to our Cardijn.info website.

On this blog, we hope to keep you updated about the latest additions to our websites and to let you know quickly about any other news that may not warrant a full article on the site.

Just to let you know, CCI now has 5 websites focusing on different aspects of our work:

1. www.cardijn.info - The home website for the Cardijn Community International emphasising news, particularly relating to CCI, the Cardijn movements and the lay apostolate in general.

2. www.josephcardijn.com - This is the website where we host original Cardijn documents and testimonies relating to his life. This site is in English which means that most of the documents here are translations from the original French (in most cases). We now have around 30 talks and articles already posted.

3. www.josephcardijn.fr - Here we post Cardijn's writings in their original French. Even though he was Flemish by origin, Cardijn in fact wrote mostly in French. Also around 30 articles here.

4. resources.cardijn.info - Here we post other articles and links relating to various aspects of Cardijn's life and work as well as training resources relating to see, judge, act, etc.

5. www.newpentecost.com - This is the special website we have created for our New Pentecost program. Each year around Pentecost Sunday we hold an event or series of events seeking to highlight an aspect of Cardijn's heritage.

We will keep you updated through this blog on all the latest news.

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